E Line Arterial BRT

[fehler]

If you want connections, end it at the Knox/76th Orange Line station.

[MNdible]

I know that we haven't had great success with suburban circulators, but this area seems like it would be ideal for a shuttle that would connect between the Southdale Transit Center and the Orange Line. It could make more frequent stops than the E Line would, and could be a little bit more circuitous than you'd want a regular bus line to be. My guess is that the average age of residents in this area is skewing older, so many residents might just use it for shopping and errands within the greater Southdale area and not ever connect to the rest of the transit system.

[alexschief]

If you want connections, end it at the Knox/76th Orange Line station.

Good call, that's exactly the right answer.

Time to build a new layover facility.

[Trademark]

I'm sure this has been discussed so far, but does this line go far enough?

There is a substantial collection of multi-family buildings across 70th Street in the Centennial Lakes area, and this line ends short of that. The Southdale Transit Center has a certain logic as a terminus, but I suspect you could easily justify two further stations; one around the Nine Mile Creek Regional Trail, and a new terminus at 76th Street. This area seems like it might be too busy to pass up simply because you're locked into a certain transit center.

I could see it being extended to a future 494 corridor BRT line

[Silophant]

I'm hoping that in a couple years, when we've got five BRT lines running and more spare vehicles, that MT/Metro Council will start looking at extending corridors by a stop or two where warranted, without having to go through the whole $100M new corridor process. This is a good example, but I'd also like to see the B Line get a station at Lake and France, or the C Line extend down 11th to Franklin.

[Trademark]

I'm hoping that in a couple years, when we've got five BRT lines running and more spare vehicles, that MT/Metro Council will start looking at extending corridors by a stop or two where warranted, without having to go through the whole $100M new corridor process. This is a good example, but I'd also like to see the B Line get a station at Lake and France, or the C Line extend down 11th to Franklin.

Or the F line to Lake street

[Bakken2016]

https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetin ... ation.aspx

Recommended Corridor Plan to be released after Met Council approves.

Recommended changes to three stations:
– University & Berry: Shift northbound platform to Berry Street
– Upton & 43rd Street: Shift southbound platform to northwest corner of
intersection
– 44th Street & Zenith: Shift station to Abbott Avenue

Additional analysis of platform alternatives at several
stations done, but no changes to the original recommendation.
– 1st Avenue NE & 2nd Street NE
– Sheridan & 39th Street
– France & 47th Street
– France & 50th Street

[Bakken2016]

https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetin ... ation.aspx

Update on Bus Lanes for the E Line in NE Minneapolis.

[Tom H.]

The E Line, a new BRT route, is coming from Metro Transit. Here's a primer.

[twincitizen]

The E Line opens this Saturday, Dec. 6!

Events:
https://www.metrotransit.org/E-Line
https://www.facebook.com/events/718229914648220

[angrysuburbanite]

I'm so excited! This is going to be such a useful and meaningful improvement for the route 6 corridor. Expanding the high frequency service all the way down to Southdale, having no branches and overall being faster will definitely be welcome changes. I'll definitely get a lot of use out of this line when I go to the U of M in a couple years, and I think that will be true of a lot of people who may have never considered using the 6 before. Managed to get my first (and last) route 6 ride in a couple weeks ago, though only on the Xerxes branch.

These opening events are so much fun and I like the effort put into the countdown clocks on stations, free rides, posters, etc. The Gold Line opening day was definitely eye opening for a lot of people who just wanted to try it out. Good first impressions like that can win over people, even if they don't ride regularly. It's unfortunate the B Line didn't get that but I hope the E Line opening day is just as awesome!

[angrysuburbanite]

Anyone get to ride it today? I was very happy with how fast it was and just the sheer amount of awesome neighborhoods it runs through, but those part-time bus lanes were absolutely terrible. The operators were swerving in and out of them, people were parking in the bus stop loading zones, and they made everything slower and more dangerous than needed. The Hennepin Ave section in particular was causing bunching and delays. I noticed a lot of riders were complaining about these stupid parking/bus lanes too. I love the E Line a lot already, but the city needs to get its act together and at least try to care about transit. That is the only thing holding the E Line back is the stupid decision to allow street parking. It's so embarrassing.

[Hamstirly]

Yeah the bus was completely packed when I got on just before the event. Thought Klobuchar was very awkward shouting mayor over and over. Not as weird as Frey saying that Dibble and Hornstein were more delicious than franks and beans though. And the whole acting like he's pro transit when he killed the 24 hour bus lanes on S Hennepin. Super jealous that they didn't give out any of the E Line scarves those looked really cool.

To be fair to the car drivers the bus lanes are only marked for Monday-Friday so nobody today was breaking the law today. I do see people parked in them in the middle of rush hour all the time though so still definitely a problem.

[angrysuburbanite]

I was hoping the delays were first-day jitters but looking at a bus tracker at 5:00 PM today and the average delay is 9 minutes 14 seconds behind schedule. Only 3 of the 16 buses on the route were running on time. It seems to me like the priority treatments that were promised as part of the E Line rollout are not working as they should. Between the part-time bus lanes and what seems to be quite terrible signal priority I don't think route 6 riders are seeing faster trips right now. Once again, I'm glad the E Line exists and Metro Transit is trying their best, but the city is really holding back this thing's potential.

[blo442]

The "open secret" about BRT scheduling, as I understand it, is that Metro Transit intentionally makes the schedules for BRT buses unrealistically aggressive because the buses only get TSP requests granted if they are far enough behind schedule. So the BRT buses should be expected to consistently sit in the 3-5 minute behind schedule range if operating as envisioned by MT schedulers, in order to maximize TSP and minimize actual travel time.

Also, road conditions out there are still not the greatest, despite the Sisyphean efforts of the plows to keep up with the strong of snow events we're having. Bendy buses don't handle well in snow, and bus lanes tend to be more snow-covered because they don't have the constant stream of car tires helping to clear snow off the pavement. So the weather may be contributing to the delays by forcing operators to drive more conservatively. I want to wait for a few straight days of calm dry weather before judging the E Line too harshly.

[intercomnut]

The other reason they schedule them so aggressively is to avoid having early buses hold to get back on time. That’s not a problem for buses with stops that are in a parking lane or turn lane, but it becomes a problem with the ABRT stops that are in a lane of traffic.

[MNdible]

Also, road conditions out there are still not the greatest, despite the Sisyphean efforts of the plows to keep up with the strong of snow events we're having. Bendy buses don't handle well in snow, and bus lanes tend to be more snow-covered because they don't have the constant stream of car tires helping to clear snow off the pavement. So the weather may be contributing to the delays by forcing operators to drive more conservatively. I want to wait for a few straight days of calm dry weather before judging the E Line too harshly.

Also, reminder that we continue to roll out road designs that absolutely refuse to take into account snow management, meaning that when it inevitably does snow, the roads no longer work as intended. Which is cool, because that's only like a third of the year.

[Hamstirly]

Serious question: what does a city street that takes into account snow look like? Green space that snow can be piled onto at the edge of the road? Big pits to hold snow? Because we kinda have both of those on new Hennepin in boulevard space and the rain gardens. I'm not sure what else you could do other than heat the road or have highway drainage ditches.

[MNdible]

Two recent trends in recent road designs that make them difficult to maintain with snow:
1. Complicated geometries are much more difficult to plow effectively. It's hard for plow drivers to clear the road when they can't really tell where the curbing and medians are. This leads to a bunch of sign pollution trying to signal where the curbs are, but it's ugly and not very effective.
2. Lane widths have been reduced to the point that there's no wiggle room, so when you lose a foot, or often two feet to snow banks that cut down the lanes, it becomes increasingly difficult to maneuver larger vehicles, especially buses.